Constantly Keen
by Deena
Summary: As a favor, Yohji decides that his next mission is to find Ken a girlfriend…despite the fact that Ken doesn’t want a girlfriend. An accidental occurrence leads Yohji to believe that Ken wants Aya, when naturally he doesn’t…or does he?
1. Prologue

Dedication: For Midori Natari Himura, who's sweet, thoughtful and who loves RanKen as much as me. Her stories are some of the best here so go read her stuff because you won't be disappointed. Hope you like this fraff!

~*~Prologue~*~

You know what's weird? Winnie the Pooh is weird.

"And let me tell you, it wasn't an easy situation to navigate around in, what with her sister and her mother wanting me, not that I could blame them, heh heh, especially given my obvious-"

Winnie and Piglet get lost in a snow storm looking for Tiger right? They're shivering it up and pulling their scarves tighter and then they complain that they're cold. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I mean no fucking _duh _ they're cold!

"I wanted to tell them because you never know if you'll get in shit or if there's a possibility of a threesome or in this case should I say a foursome-"

Picture this: bear and pig trudging through the forest in the middle of winter, clad in scarves and sweaters, colder than a witch's tit. They whimper, they wail, they bemoan the fates.  Are we, the viewer supposed to feel sorry for them? What do they expect? Neither of them are wearing any motherfucking_ pants_ ! 

"Looking back on it all, I can see now that the trouble really started when Erla, that sexy exchange student from Iceland came to stay with Saitcho and she thought-"

I'd be fucking cold too if I was plowing around, hip-deep in winter waste with no goddamn pants on! If you're too much of a dumbfest to put on pants in the middle of winter then you have no right to complain. What bullshit. The stupidity of the whole thing was mind-boggling.

"After a few Martinis she started sliding her hand up my leg, nothing new there, not with all the previous-"

So Pooh and co. wears no pants in winter...or any other time for that matter...and yet when Pooh emerges from the shower, he's got a towel wrapped around his waist. A friggin' _towel. _How in the love of god does that make any sense? It's all so pointless. I mean shut up Pooh. 

"The sex was good but then all the jealously started just because I kissed the-"

We've all seen Pooh's business when he got stuck in the hole from eating too much 'hunny' (dumbass can't spell either) so why cover it up with a towel? I'm not saying that I _want_ to see any Pooh ass or anything but if you're gonna show fur one minute and then next you're gonna cover it up just because- 

"Ken?"

...he comes out the shower and then in the middle of winter you give him no pants, well that's just foolishness as far as I can see and while I'm no great scholar, it doesn't take a genius to-

"Ken?"

Yohji poked me in the forehead, rousing me from my stupor. "Well, what do you think?"

My eyes slowly focused, blurred double and triple lines cleaving together to form solid images. I could see Yohji peering intently at me. I wiped at my mouth and was relieved to find no drool. I cleared my throat and stroked my chin for a few moments. "Weigh all options," I finally grunted.

"You mean you think I should tell-" 

Was that a ladybug sitting on a rose leaf? I leaned towards the bursting bouquet for a closer look. Sure enough, a tiny little ladybug was skittering up the verdant foliage. How adorably precious. Life was so fragile and yet so magnificent. There was beauty all over the place and if you were keen enough, you could definitely hold witness to it. Good thing I was a keen, astute individual. I'd always prided myself on being constantly alert and on top of any given-

"Ken?" Another poke.

I nodded earnestly. "That's sounds...stellar."

Yohji breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Honest to _fuck_ Ken, I don't know what I'd do without you. Omi keeps telling me that I talk too much about my love life, that I ramble." He chuckled indulgently. "That boy really does have the most outrageous ideas at times. But you, you always know exactly what to tell me. Obviously you appreciate that being a _connoisseur_ of women, such as I am, is no mean feat. Clearly you understand the trials and tribulations I'm forced to endure daily. It's not easy, being able to please all the ladies!"

I peeled my gaze from the ladybug, now scurrying cutely onto the counter. "It's nothing," I answered modestly.

"No seriously Ken!" Yohji seemed roused as he slung one lanky arm around my shoulders. "You give me the best advice, in spite of your _meager_  romantic experiences and for that I owe you man."

With some panic I tried to shrug Yohji's arm off but he was not to be budged. "You don't have-"

"Oh it's not a question of 'don'ts' and 'shouldn'ts'," Yohji interrupted breezily. "It's the least I could do. Well actually the least I could do is nothing but I figure after all the help you've given me, I need to pay you back some. That's why I've decided to make use of my finest talent and get you into a relationship. I'm gonna find you a girlfriend Ken!" He smirked and paused, as though expecting applause. There was none.

"I hate relationships," I ground out. This was the truth. After Yuriko left to stupid Australia, I had made a pact with myself. I was never going to get involved with a girl again. It was stupid, tutti-frutti and pointless. Who the hell would want her boyfriend to be a damn assassin? I'd just be wasting my time and one thing I did not like was wasting time. I had way more important things to do. "I don't want a girlfriend."

"Now don't be stubborn Ken," Yohji chided. "I've made up my mind."

"But I seriously-"

"Oh gross, a bug." Yohji snatched up the pruning shears and mashed the ladybug flat.


	2. Chapter 1

~*~Chapter 1~*~

Have you ever wanted to kill someone and I mean _really_ kill them? You know, with blood and gore galore? I know what it's like to kill since I do it all the time, yeah the world's a sick place, but this time it was different. I _wanted_ to see blood and gore galore. I _wanted_ kill someone. Someone I knew and kinda liked or well at least I used to.

I wanted to kill Yohji. And while I was at it, dealing out some justice to that stupid Omi wouldn't hurt either. I never thought I'd say that, let alone envision it in grand scenes of Technicolor, but life rarely goes as planned, which leads me to conclude that one shouldn't ever plan anything. It's true. Planning is a fat waste of time...much like having a girlfriend.

I really loathe the word 'girlfriend' now and I have my good buddy Kudou to thank for that. Seriously, the guy's a crackpot. He's bonkers. I don't know what his problem is but I think he hates me. I really do. The girls he thinks I'd go for...yeah he definitely hates me.

But before all that hoopla, there was the 'Planning Stage' to go through. Evidently Yohji doesn't adhere to the old 'never plan anything' philosophy as I do. Since Yohji doesn't know shitall about planning anything other then his wardrobe and let's face it, that's none too spectacular, he decided to enlist the help of the Prodigious Planner himself, Omi and his handy PC.

They would sit together, in the shop or in the basement or on a mission, scrutinizing me in the most obvious of manners and whispering loudly. Phrases like "Sporty is good, they can go on soccer dates together" and "Definitely long hair, what with his face and all" followed me like danger on a Friday night. Everywhere I went, two pairs of eyes trailed me, assessing me clinically. 

It was ghastly.

But it didn't end there, oh no heaven forbid. Next came the plethora of unwanted, dim-witted advice..._all day long_!

"You shouldn't run up the stairs in roller blades Ken, not if you want a girlfriend."

"You shouldn't play 'see-food' with your sushi Ken, not if you want a girlfriend."

"You shouldn't put your sneakers in the microwave oven Ken, not if you want a girlfriend."

"You shouldn't leave the toilet seat down Ken, not if you want a girlfriend."

After this went on for some time, I finally thought to take action.

"I DON'T WANT A DAMN GIRLFRIEND!" I shouted following one incident of afternoon ear-picking with a trowel.

Yohji and Omi exchanged shocked looks.

I gloated with vigor. Sometimes all you had to do is put your foot down in a show of pervasive, burly-

"You shouldn't yell Ken, not if you want a girlfriend," Yohji advised.

"You shouldn't gloat Ken, not if you want a girlfriend," Omi recommended.

Ylarxghhhh~!

I identified the current predicament as an 'Abundance of Communications'...in that there seemed to be no end in sight of all the yapping and yodeling Yohji and Omi were doing. So I did what any rational, level-headed adult would do and spent most of my time talking to Aya in order to avoid Dumb and Dumber. I don't know how he felt about this sudden outpouring of civility on my behalf but I did notice that he had taken to wearing his Discman a lot. That gave me a great idea, namingly I also wore my Discman and whenever Yohji and Omi tried to say something, I played Dir en Gray as loud as I could and sang like a castrated monster. I suffered a few ear bleeds, some loss of speech and bad diarrhea one night but in the end, it was worth it.

Kind of.   

See, I just figured they'd eventually get bored of all this girlfriend-hunting business. I was stubborn, I was unwilling, I was a basket-case, I was a loser. Who'd wanna deal with stress of it all? Yohji and Omi, apparently. These were not the best times of my life.

I don't know how many days passed, they all melted together, what with all the planning and scrutinizing and advice-giving but one bright afternoon, Yohji dropped the big one. And I'm not talking about wind-emission.

I was standing outside of the shop, spraying a row of shrubs with the hose when Yohji saddled up to me in a fumigating cloud of 'Musk of Man' eau de pungent.

"Hey Ken!"

I grunted.

"This is my good friend Shika."

I grunted again.

"Yohji's told me so much about you," a very feminine voice cooed.

My head shot up. Standing next to Yohji was a girl with dyed maroon hair and frosty-looking blue lipstick. She looked like she just kissed winter. Her clothes consisted of black pants that reminded me of a garbage bag and this really tight blue top that had fur around the hands and plunging neckline. I'm not lying, there was real fake black fur on her shirt. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This weirdo was the girl Yohji and Omi had spent weeks trying to find for me? How insulting! This garbage-pants fake-fur wearing, icicle-mouth talking, unnaturally hairy head, wants a boyfriend who does she think she is dumb bimbo wait 'till I get my hands on Yohji that lousy bastard-

"Ken!" Yohji poked me in the forehead.

I scowled as hard as I could.

Yohji guffawed heartily and ruffled my hair. "You kids have fun now you hear!" He yanked the hose from my hands and shoved me towards snow-mouth.

"Thanks Yohji," she gushed, grabbing onto my arm in a tentacular-style leech. She began dragging me down the street. "Yohji told me allllllll about you!"

I tried to pull my arm away but to no avail. "Funny, he told me nothing about you."

"Oh hahahahahahahahahahahaha you're hilarious!"

I was very disturbed to note that when she laughed, she threw her head back and really let loose. This was _nothing_ I liked.

I stopped. "Look it's really nice to meet you and all that but I got a ton of stuff to do today. I don't know what Yohji told you but I'm not interested in starting a relationship."

Snow-mouth let go of my arm. "Yeah you're not really my type."

I bit back several highly sarcastic retorts.

"Just get Yohji to gimme a call, okay? "

When I got back to the shop, Yohji and Omi were working on a couple of lily arrangements and congratulating each other on a match well made. I didn't think, I just attacked. Unfortunately the lilies bore most of the brunt of my anger but on the plus side, Yohji managed to entrapped Omi in his wire. I would have laughed if my face hadn't been mashed into the linoleum by Aya's foot. He was steaming, as far as I could see, which wasn't very far when I thought about it.

When Aya was out of the picture, leaving in a moody huff, I launched into a tirade of the most furious proportions. I was super pissed and then some. I did not want to be set-up with anyone and I did not want a girlfriend and I did not want to date! After that hullabaloo, I also left in a huff but that was more to make a dramatic exit than anything else. I figured I showed them who's boss.

Evidently, I wasn't boss, they were. The next day Omi introduced me to some soccer chick from his school. Then, a half an hour later, came Yohji's Scottish friend who couldn't speak a word of Japanese that I understood. Things did not improve as the days went on. I was forced to meet girl after girl, each as tinky as the last. It wasn't always pleasant, breaking it straight off with the girls. One of them cried, but that could have been because I accidentally stepped on her foot.

I was at my wit's end. It was getting so that I didn't want to work because who knew what girl I'd be forced to endure for five minutes. So I turned to my only ally in this crazy game, Aya. I cornered him one evening after our shift in the stairwell leading up to our apartments.

"Aya you've gotta help me, I can't take anymore of this hoopla!" I blubbered, wringing my apron for effect.

Aya looked at me. He put on his Discman. I knew he wanted to hear what I had to say.

"Yohji thinks me owes me for giving him advice and now he wants to find me a girlfriend so he got Omi to help and they keep trying to hook me up with all these girls and I'm sure they're really nice but I don't want a girlfriend because of that pact I made and even then how could I have a girlfriend doing what I do you know what I mean and I just don't know what to do because no one ever listens to ME!"

Aya was staring at the wall in a glazed sort of way. I noticed that his eyes were a bit unfocused. He must have been thinking pretty hard, that was for sure. He was a thinker, Aya was.

"Aya?" I poked his arm. "What do you think I should do huh?"

He looked around. "Strategize," he finally grunted.

"You mean you think I should do a bit of my own planning and get Yohji and Omi back in a way that they'd never figure? Like beating them at their own game, kinda?"

Aya was looking blurry-eyed again. I wondered if he had cataracts.

"That sounds...favorable."

"Shit, you're a genius!" I crowed, giving him a whack of camaraderie on his back. "You're a Prince of a guy, you know that? A real swell dude! I owe you big time. You'll help me think this shit out right?"

"Uh..." Aya fiddled with his Discman.

"I knew I could count on you!"

I gave him another friendly whack and bounded up the stairs. Seriously, what a guy! He acted all cold and uncaring but really he was helpful and concerned on the inside. Wow, I was so relieved not to be alone in this mess anymore. Now I had a friend and it was Aya! What cool times. 

I looked back down the stairs at him. He was watching a bug crawl up the banister.

"Prince of a guy!"


	3. Chapter 2

~*~Chapter 2~*~

You know when you have a really great idea and you think it's the answer to all your problems but something goes wrong in a way you never imagined and then you're left in even deeper shit then you were in before? Well let me tell you, it's _not_ an enjoyable experience. You get your hopes up and then the next thing you know you've been squashed flat...much like a bug.

Squashed bugs. How my heart stings ache with turmoil.

So yeah, I got myself into a pretty sucky mess. A truly sucky mess, you might even say. For sure I'd say it. I should have known that me + ideas = a big, turdy mess. My last great idea was to stay here while Yuriko left to Australia and look at where I am now. Wading around in Shit Creek without thigh galoshes and killing fish all over the place. I may be in the business of dispensing justice but let me tell you, I never get the pleasure end of _that_ deal.

Everything that happened was so junky that I found myself yearning for the simple days of meeting Yohji and Omi's girls for a few minutes before dismissing them. Why did I have to complain then? Why did I yearn for things to be better when they _were _better, at least compared to what now they were. I'm so damn stupid that sometimes I feel like crying...but only if no one is around. Everyone knows that when a guy cries, he's nothing more than a useless Nancy boy. I may be stupid and loud but I am _not_ a useless Nancy boy.

I guess all the trouble started after a mission Aya and I had together. First we hammed it up at some fancy-pants style frou-frou party, stole a high-tech disk from the host and then got caught by a bunch of 'Early Man' looking security guards. We fought and got our asses whooped before managing to book it. Aya was especially pissed. I think one of the guys pulled his eartails. A scream that high is _not_ normal among boy above thirteen.

Both of us had a couple of serious wounds so we ended up in the basement beneath the shop to fix ourselves up. As I bandaged my arm, I ranted on about how I'd really pound-face next time I saw those lousy security guards. I wouldn't be so lenient next time, that was for sure. Then I brainstormed about what to do to get Yohji and Omi to stop bugging me. After all the spooky times they'd let me in for, I was gonna have to do something pretty nasty alright. I asked Aya what he thought after a while but he was fast asleep on the couch. The poor guy must have been plum-tuckered out. Or maybe he took sleeping pills. In any case, I was sure that he'd have some great ideas for me when he woke up. He was always smart like that.

I headed back upstairs to my apartment. As I passed Yohji's pad, I heard voices coming from inside. I listened hard. He and Omi were chatting it up. I ducked into my apartment, fetched a glass and set about 'creatively acquiring info'. If they were doing more planning and shit then there was going to be some trouble tonight.

"She's the older sister of this guy I tutor in math," Omi was saying. "She likes to do taxidermy and she's really pretty too. I say she'd be perfect for Ken."

"And let's not forget about Ameki," Yohji added. "She's that hot chick who models lingerie."

I couldn't believe it. Taxidermy? Underwear model? Was this what it all had sunk to? I didn't want these scourges upon society to be my girlfriend. Hell I didn't even want a girlfriend! Why wouldn't those two dumbos listening to me? Damn Yohji and his foggy, altruistic ways. Why wasn't he more like Aya? Aya always listened to me. He was a Prince of a guy like that!

"I know Ken seems a bit reluctant-"

A _bit_? Groovy powers of deduction, retard!

"But this is something I _want_ to do," Yohji went on. "Ken always hears me out and he's there when I need him. He's such a caring, nice guy and chicks totally dig that. He could be happy with the right girl and that's all I want for him."

I blinked, feeling a bit misty. Yohji was being so considerate...why I could almost believe that he cared! Maybe he was also a Prince of a guy!

"And that's exactly why I'm also gonna give Jun'ko a call, just in case Ameki doesn't work out."

"Who, that wrestler? That Jun'ko?" Omi's voice was dubious. "Isn't she a bit, you know, fat?"

Almost. I could _almost_ believe it.

"Big is beautiful."

I knew Yohji wasn't a Prince of a guy!

"Oh come on Yohji, you can't set Ken up with _her_. She's super loud and obnoxious and she's hates all men! Plus she's always hitting people."

"Ken's soft and charming ways are sure to win her over," Yohji replied. "And she doesn't hit people that _much_. I'm sure Ken'll stick with her for a spell. You know how she doesn't take to rejection all that well."

Fuming, I stalked back into my apartment. What the hell was going on here? One minute Yohji wanted to set me up with a hot model and the next a pissed, fat girl-wrestler? Dammit, I didn't deserve this kind of 'friendship'! I didn't even care about Yohji's stupid problems, I was always bored stupid when listening to them! 

Annoyed, I turned on the TV and yanked the volume knob way up. My ears rang but that would show those assclowns next door! It served them right, to be forced to listen to my loud TV just like I had to listen to all their stupid plotting! 

I plopped down on the sofa and scowled. "I hate you Yohji. You dumb jerkface."

A feminine product commercial came on. The woman began pouring blue liquid onto a...well you know. I started to feel ill. This was not the kind of thing I'd envisioned being on TV. I wanted to spite Yohji and Omi with loud music and annoying shows, nothing as gruesome as this horrorfest. I quickly turned the sound down and hunted through the channels for something good.

It was during this interlude of mini-vengeance that I stumbled across my idiocy of an idea. At the time I thought it was a brilliant scheme and figured it would bring about the end to all these dumb dramas. Oh how wrong I was. How very, _very_ wrong.

The phone rang, interrupting my obnoxious channel-finding. It was a wrong number but when I turned back to the TV, I saw that I had left it on quite a racy show. Two guys, yes _guys_, were kissing in a swimming pool. Shocked and more than a little bit embarrassed, I hurriedly offed the TV.

The only experience I've had with someone gay was this guy who used to be on my soccer team. I never talked to him much though and no one else knew that he was gay, at least I don't think anyone did. I left my cleats in the locker room one day and when I ran back inside to get them, I stumbled over the strap of a gym bag. A bunch of 'boy' magazines fell out. Out of pure curiosity I leafed through one but it was too weird. I don't actually know anything about being gay, other then the basics, most of which I got out of that one magazine, that one time. However the image of the guys kissing on TV gave me what I perceived to be an ingenious idea. The solution to my all my problems was so obvious that you'd have to be thick, which naturally I was not, not to see it. 

If I liked the boys then I didn't like the girls and that meant NO GIRLFRIEND.

Yes that's how it would work and then all this girlfriend business would fade away. Yohji, being the pervy womanizer that he was, would most likely find my sexual orientation to be repulsive, with any luck and Omi...well I didn't care about Omi just as long as he stopped pestering me. But to _genuinely_ convince them that this wasn't some harebrained plot, which clearly it was, I was going to need the help of my good bud Aya. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

I snuck out of my apartment and back downstairs to the basement where Aya was sleeping. I studied him for a few minutes. Yeah, any gay guy would love Aya. He cut quite the dash, as they say. He was attractive in a very exotic fashion. He even looked better when sleeping, mostly because he wasn't scowling and sneering and glaring and glowering. He looked almost...pretty. Not that I'd ever tell him that. He might not like that. 

Making sure that he was definitely asleep, he was must have been the sleeping pills, I got down to business. I tore off my T-shirt for effect and then set about trying to get off Aya's trench coat. That's when I ran into trouble. Fucking Buddha above, what was this guy, paranoid? I never saw so much buckles and straps and fasteners in all my life! It wasn't easy opening all that hoopla. I mean seriously, what was the point? Did Aya have some kind of apprehension that while on a mission, somehow, someway his coat might fall open? Was he that shy? Did he wear funny stuff underneath?

I peeked under the coat but that wasn't it. He was just wearing a black thing. Hmm. The guy was weirder then I thought. And that earring, what was that all about? I tried to remember whether wearing in earring in your right ear meant you were gay or was it your left ear but I couldn't. If Aya was gay, not saying that he is but if he _was_, I would be in some luck. But then again, if anything, Aya's more of an asexual type.

I was still trying to figure out the stupid coat when Aya turned over, right onto my arm. His face was mere centimeters away from mine. His breath fanned my face. I tried to jerk my arm out but I was afraid to wake him. I never realize how hefty Aya truly was. God this was stupid. But I had to admit, at this close proximity, Aya was nice looking. His skin was like milk...homogenized milk. Mmmm milk.

Boy I sure was thirsty.

I tugged my arm painstakingly and was rewarded when I moved exactly half a millimeter. My arm was beginning to cramp up, thanks to Aya's stupid bulk. When he woke up, I was gonna tell him that he needed to go on a diet. How much did he weigh anyway? One ten? One twenty? Jeeze what a beefcake. I was no iron man, I couldn't handle that much mass pounding onto my delicate bone structure. It was all so absurd, that I should be in this position.

I managing to free my arm yet another half a millimeter when I heard footsteps coming from above me. Someone was in the shop and judging from the voices, and the fact that there were only a select few who could access the shop, namingly myself, Aya and the two goons, it must have been the goons. Those losers, what were they doing? Why were they wandering around in the shop?

The footsteps grew louder, meaning only one thing: they were on their way downstairs.

Originally my plan had been to fall asleep near Aya, both of us in various states of undress and then as Yohji or Omi stumbled upon us, they could make of it what they would. However I most assuredly did _not_ want to get caught like this. I mean for God's sakes, Aya was still asleep. With me half-naked and stuck, it looked like I was some kind of pervy, voyeuristic fiend! 

"Shits," I cursed. I threw caution into the wind. Grabbing hold of Aya's bony shoulder, why did I think he was fat, I shoved at it with my left hand while struggling to free my right. It wasn't easy, mostly because Aya, the big lug, wouldn't move. I pushed harder, educing Aya to mumble something that sounded suspiciously like 'night'. Then he hugged me, squashing me to his upper torso.

"Mmmphff!" My face was mashed up against his shoulder.

Aya garbled some more while I thrashed and twisted. I could now hear Omi's voice as he and Yohji grew closer. Their footsteps seemed extraordinarily loud.

"Aya!" I hissed noisily. "Wake up and get off me!"

His grip on me didn't slack. I knew there was no hope for it. Maybe he'd taken some medicine or something because usually Aya was the lightest sleeper around. Well whatever, I would not be found as a randy bastard!. I opened my mouth and _bit_.

Aya shot straight up so fast my head spun. Yanking my arm back to me, I felt an overwhelming sense of relieved acquisition, which last about two and a half seconds. 

"You bit me!" Aya roared. His violet eyes were filled with the tiniest bit of shock and a shitload of anger. Aya's a pretty intense guy normally but when you've just sunken your pearly whites into _his_ pearly white...well that not the good math, that's for sure. The only thing that prevented me from fleeing to the hills in record nanoseconds was that I'd run into Yohji and Omi, both of whom I could hear dashing across the store. They'd obviously heard Aya and any moment now they'd stumble upon this scene...

Aya, in his rage, flung himself onto me. His gloved hand tangled into my hair and he _jerked_. Yawza that smart! My eyes watered. Aya pulled harder before smashing my head onto the floor. Damn but I saw galaxies like you wouldn't believe!  

"Dumbo motherfucker!" he was hissing. "What'd you bite me for?" 

Before I knew what I was doing, half in stupidity and half in self-preservation...don't forget that I had a crazed loon quashing my _medulla oblongata _into the carpet, I was shouting words at the top of my lungs. "I'm attracted to you!" The clamoring down the stairs stopped. Aya let go on my hair and my head fell loudly onto the floor, again. I winced. Aya stared down at me while pressing his mouth into a very thin line. I should have quit then but, well no one ever said that I knew when to quit. "You're so attractive and kind that I can't contain my...myself any longer!"

"You...you're...you...uh..."

Aya seemed stunned. Over his fiery hair, I could see Yohji and Omi peering down at us. "Yes, I wish to love you!" Grimacing heavily, I pursed my mouth and gingerly touched it to Aya's, cringing all the while. 

I must have been suffering from brain drain.


	4. Chapter 3

~*~Chapter 3~*~

There're only so many suspicious looks a guy can take before he goes stark, raving _bonkers_. Currently, I was well on the way to Bonkerdom Bog, what with all the frequent flier miles I'd been handed in the past few hours. 

Aya gave me suspicious looks. Yohji gave me suspicious looks. Omi gave me suspicious looks. The guy from the greenhouse gave me suspicious looks. I don't know what his problem was, other then maybe he was just hopping on the 'everybody's doing it' freight train. Who knows? I sure didn't. I had enough to worry about without pondering the insecurities of the supplier guy. Aya gave me more suspicious looks. Hell even I gave myself suspicious looks. I mean, was I gay now? My lips had touched those of a man!

And not any man, oh no this was no hobo Joshi Takahoshi off the streets, this was my _team mate_. This was Aya who'd helped me so far and had been a real bud to me and how did I repay him? By putting my mouth on his. Of course I also bit him but in our line of work, what's a little pain here and there? And taking into account all the straps and shit on the guy's trench coat, well I dare say he might even _like _pain, if you catch my snowdrift. 

But pain was one thing and kissing...well kissing was a whole other solar system. Especially buddies who are _guys_ kissing. I breached a bunch of lines back there, all so that I wouldn't have to find a girlfriend. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how gay my actions were. Zany antics or not, there was not denying that what I did was high on the Faerie Scale. What guy would kiss his best dude pal so that he _wouldn't_ have to find a girlfriend...unless the guy actually did like to partake of manmeat?

These thoughts scared me. What if my actions last night were the result of some 'subconscious' mumbo pango? Could it be that deep inside I was interested in being Aya's bitch? What with all his anal retentive ways, it wasn't like I could be the butch. But on the other hand, what if Aya _wanted_ me to lord over him and be some authoritative figure, like a daddy or a prison guard or a priest? What if he wanted me to be the top? I had no experience in these kinds of matters! 

Then I recalled how pissed Aya had been when I bit him so I thought that he probably wouldn't like me to smack his ass and say 'Who's your daddy bitch?' Shits. This was petrifying. I did not like to partake of manmeat and I didn't want to be anybody's bitch! Sure Aya was attractive, as far as guys go (and I don't mean that in a fancy boy way) but when you thought about it, you'd come to realize that...that...uh...

I think I still need to think about it. 

I swear, all these thoughts about thinking and thinking of thoughts were giving me indigestion.

The morning slowly slid into the afternoon and with a deluge of more suspicious looks, gee that was different, Omi and Aya set off to deliver a dozen Hemlock plants to a 'Death of Socrates' party, whatever that was. I was glad to see them and their suspicious ways, go. Now I only had Yohji to deal with and he would...

"Young man are you're saying that these seeds will grow anywhere from eight to ten _zucchinis_ or eight to ten zucchini _plants_?"

...be busy for a while.

I ducked into the storage closet, relishing the look of acute annoyance on Yohji's face. Served that bonebrain right, after all the trashy drama he'd put me through. Try to set me up with underwear models and wrestlers would he? Well I'd show him. I'd show them all!

"Ahah hah hah hah hah," I laughed with much glee.

Sure Aya and Yohji and Omi all thought I was a gay weirdo and they'd probably shun me into 'passing acquaintance-hood' and I'd be miserable and lonely because they wouldn't want to talk to me anymore and I'd have no friends but at least I wouldn't be shackled to some chick. No one ever said life was a box of chocolates afterall. 

Sniggering jovially to myself, I began the tedious process of taking inventory. Someone kept stealing petunia seeds. It was most peculiar.

Eventually Yohji came barging into the supply room. "What was all that drama about last night?" he demanded hotly.

Lord what a bossy guy! "I like Aya," I declared in as blasé a tone as I could muster. "You know, like _like_. Got a problem with that buster?" Inside, I smirked. Take that algaebum!

"Well shits. No wonder you didn't want all those saucy ladies we found for you, they got the wrong kind of equipment!" Yohji chuckled and shook his head. He seemed to have gotten over his suspicious ways rather well, all things considering. "I should have figured it out ages ago! The way you love soccer so much and always ogle the players...it's pretty obvious! You don't really give a crap about that boring, losery game, you're just all about the hot guys and lean, sweaty bodies eh? Ken, you sly devil you! And all this time I thought you were an innocent kind of guy!"

Hey wait a minute! I never ogled no one! Soccer was not a boring, losery game! I _am_ an innocent kind of guy! "Hey now wait a-"

"Oh don't get all huffy with me champ, sex is sex. There's nothing to be ashamed of." Yohji gave me an enthusiastic wink. "You just leave it to me and I'll hook you up with Aya no problem. They don't call me 'The Love Connoisseur' for nothing!"

This, I had not anticipated. It took me a few minutes to stop staring and close my mouth. "No one calls you the love connoisseur! And besides, er...I thought you wouldn't be okay with this. I mean, uh don't you think two guys is gross?" 

"If it feels good, do it, that's what I say." Yohji whacked me on the back. "Besides, it's not like I'm totally unfamiliar with the more manly specimens. Men, women, I'm a stud wanted by all. Guys dig me you know? Always have. I just choose the ladies 'cuz I don't swing that way. But seriously, you don't hafta worry about a thing. You just let your good ol' bud Yoj handle things and then the sparks'll really fly!"

I was disgusted. Yeah there'd be sparks alright. Flying sparks when I clawed Yohji's stupid head off! "Shut up _Yoj_."

"Ohhh, you don't need to be shy around me!" Yohji enthused, grabbing my head and rubbing his knuckles in my hair. "You want Aya? Simple! No problem! This is a piece of mochi! All you have to do is wine him, dine him and then after...heh heh heh...refine him."

What was this buffoon saying? I yanked my head from his buddy-bonding clutch. I was not going out in _public_ with Aya! Yeah right, guess again, do not pass go and do not collect 200 Yen! What did I look like, a gigolo? "I am not going out in _public_ with Aya! Yeah right, guess again, do not pass go and do not collect 200 Yen! What do I look like, a gigolo?"

Yohji stared at me with his sunglassed, dumb eyes. "I don't get it," he said. "You like Aya. Hell, last night you were practically playing bum-darts with the guy! Why wouldn't-"

"No I wasn't!" I squeaked, my voice reaching an octave that never before had my larynx made. 

"But you wanted to, I could tell," Yohji bragged, nudging his elbow into my ribs.

I jerked away from Yohji and his touchy-feely habits. My head felt like it was on fire. _Bum-darts_? With _Aya_? What in the earth? I was not some perverted manwhore like Yohji, I had morals dammit. "I don't wanna date Aya!" I snapped. "And I don't want your stupid help. I'll do things _my_ way Yohji!"

Yohji looked on, nonplussed. Then a wide, dopey grin filled his face. "Oh I get it," he chortled. "You're scared to come out of the closet! Well not to worry, we can still keep things under wraps, if you get what I'm saying." Yohji pulled out a box from his jeans and shoved it into my hand. "You better hold on to these though. Super thin and extra-ribbed for maximum pleasure. I'll find you some Astro-Glide and then you'll be all set to go!"

I saw what the box was and shrieked, hurling away the offending box. "I don't need those you cheap dick!"

"Well sheesh!" Yohji huffed, fishing out the box from behind a bulbous bit of shrubbery. "You don't have to get hasty! This shit's expensive." He peered down his shades and levelled a stern look at me. "Just because pregnancy isn't an issue doesn't mean you shouldn't be cautious Ken. You don't know where Aya's been and with who. The guy could be a walking soup of STDs for all you know!"

By Buddha's breath! How much dumb could a person be? There was no hope for it.

I grabbed a bag of peat moss and tried to brain myself with it.


	5. Chapter 4

~*~Chapter 4~*~

Through extensive research, scrutiny and many a reluctant panderings, I have come to the conclusion that teenaged girls are the stupidest, after Yohji of course, samplings on this planet. This isn't a fake assertion, not by a long bushel. It is a truth, unchanging and eternal as far as I'm concerned. Spend one afternoon at the flower shop and you'll see exactly what I mean. It's almost too gruesome for words. 

At times I don't know whether to hate that Persia guy for turning us into shitty murderers or for forcing us into this 'Hole o' Hell'. It's so friggin' retarded. I'd like to know who the big pseudo-intellect was that said, 'hey I know a flower shop yeah good idea that's low profile and to really shade it up, let's put it right near a high school what a great cover yeah thumbs up dude.' Oh _real_ good job asshat. Because hordes of simpering, gushing, cooing love-struck teenyboppers are thoroughly subtle. 

Here I roll my eyes and extend my middle finger to the Heavens.

And all these shitty girls, not only were they friggin' _never-ending_ in their gigglings and screechings but their waxing puppy-doggy adoration was as foul as rotting havarti and thrice as stank. Someone, somewhere please gimme a break. I don't get it. How can you profess your love to someone when you don't even _know_ them? These IQ-challenged chicks don't know a single thing about any of us. They don't know what we're really like or what kind of people we are (killers) and they sure didn't get the hint that none of us wanted _them_ as girlfriends. 

For example, take this cutesy-tootsie, pigtailed specimen, sashaying up to me like she's got dirt in the skirt. Talk about minor! Talk about jailbait! Talk about...Why is she poking her cheek and blinking like that?   

OH WOULD YOU SCRAM MISS MUFFET!

I opened my mouth to tell her that I had a cactus and I wasn't afraid to use it but a funny thing happened to me. My mouth (and I'm talking _purely_ of it's own accord here, as though it was some species of mutant malefaction) curved upwards like a rubber band and I said in a super-flaky voice, "Can I help you?"

Either something gets lost in the translation from brain to mouth or else I'm running on some kind of impenetrable Service-with-a-Smile Employee/Customer Satisfaction Guaranteed style relationship that's been shellacked to my taste buds.  

The girl giggled and fiddled with a fuzzy Hello Kitty key chain that hung from her pink and blue schoolbag.

Have I recently mentioned that I _loathe_ Hello Kitty? Well I do. Hello Kitty yeah dream on. More like Make like a Dog and Flee Kitty. I'm telling you, every afternoon it's like a virtual _explosion_ of Hello Kitty. And silvery pink cell phones and pink furry notebook and glitter pens and a plethora of other girlie trinkets and there's just SO MUCH SPARKLING PINK EVERYWHERE!

I think I'm beginning to understand just why Yohji wears UV protected sunglasses all the time. At this rate, nothing short of a telescope would be able to protect my waning vision.

"So what are you doing Keennnnnnn-kuunnnnnnnnn," the girl sang in a high, slurpy voice that brings to mind my Takahashi Superrific Blending Blizzard Blender Version Ten Million Forty-Nine.

"I'm watering a plant," I said in perky tones, my pre-programmed tongue flapping along well-travelled linguistic paths, so to speak. Or so NOT to speak should I say. Really. Why couldn't I tell this bit of fluff where to go and how to get there? What was wrong with me? "Plants need water to grow."

"They need sunlight too! Tee hee! You sure are smart Ken!"

Do you see what I have to work with? Was it any bloody wonder I didn't want a girlfriend? If these riveting conversations are any indication of fates to come then I think I know exactly what I must do.

Wining, dining, and refining it is.

But nothing lasts forever and soon Omi and Aya returned from their travels into the nefarious world of floral distribution. Omi in particular had not escaped unscathed, if his red cheeks were to be believed. 

"All three of them pinched my cheeks!" he huffed to Yohji as he stuffed himself into his apron.

A variety of cooing Misses were on hand to sooth the wounded spirits and flailing pride of the young boy.

Aya stomped through the female deluge like his pants were ablaze. I noticed the resurgence of 'The Suspicious Look'. 

"We need to talk," he bit out. Here 'The Suspicious Look' took a hike as he interrupted his facial expression to scowl at Miss Muffet.

The resulting skirmish to quit the scene in the face of such blistering wrath resulted in many a trodden foot and loss of many Hello Kitty accessories. Omi helped herd to mass out the door.

Yohji however was quick to bound onto the scene. "Ken's been _dying_ to talk to you," he declared, nudging me slyly. 

I glared at the fiendish offender. "I never once said-"

"Why don't you guys go back into the supply closet?" Yohji suggested loudly, with all the tone of one who's just had a brilliant epiphany. "It's really _private_ in there."

Oh gee THAT was subtle.

Aya grunted in agreement and stalked to the closet.

"Thanks a lot shithead," I hissed scornfully.

Yohji made his fingers into guns and pointed them at me while making a dumb clicking noise . "Go grab some of that ass! I'll be listening in with Omi just in case you goof up and need some help!"

Speaking of needing some help...but practical advice was wasted on the stupid. So I contented myself with 'accidentally' stepping on Yohji's gargantuan behemoth of a foot on the way to the supply closet. 

"Ditch the loose feet Ken! You can't go tripping it up around your _boyfriend_!"

Omi gave me a deeply suspicious look as I passed him.

I didn't feel very content at all.

With great reluctance I stepped into the supply closet. Aya was leaning against a metal shelf filled with spare seed packages. I closed the door shut in Yohji and Omi's eager faces. Good gravy this was going to suck some pituitary gland. What was I supposed to tell Aya now, what with Charlie and Chaplain hamming it up outside the door?

I decided to play it cool. I propped my foot up on a ten lbs. bag of mulch and buffed my nails against my hoodie. "What's up dude?"

Aya looked like he had a donkey gizzard in his mouth. "Why'd you bite me in my sleep and then kiss me in that funny way last night?"

My foot slipped. I windmilled about, all the while seething. "What do you mean '_funny_ _way'_?" I demanded when I got some balance back. This was outrageous. "Is there something _amusing_ in the way I kiss?"

"You ran screaming from me to half way around the block and then stuck your head in the rain gutter."

The sounds of Yohji and Omi 'coughing' came from behind the door. "Uh..." There was a long silence. "I was happy."

Aya narrowed his eyes. "It didn't _sound_ like you were happy."

I went on the defensive. "How do you know how I sound when I'm happy?"

"You yell 'why oh why oh God gross' when you're happy?"

This was going to be trickier than I thought. If Yohji caught even a sprinkle of Aya's suspicious nature then it was back to hag-hunting for him, which meant joining Schwartz for me.

"You know, this brings to mind an ancient Chinese Proverb, resplendid of the Sung Dynasty." I stroked my chin while nodding my head in what I perceived to be a philosophical manner. "_Wu Wei Wu Pu Wei_. Do you know what that means?"

"Do I look Chinese?" Aya snapped testily.

Oh sheesh! The guy didn't even look Japanese for that matter! It was almost like Aya wasn't a real person but rather some kind of imaginary character that served as an alter-ego for some real Japanese guy...Oh look, there was a ladybug sitting on the edge of a terracotta planter. How cute!

"Well? Do _you_ even know what it means?"

I blinked. "Well yeah," I huffed. "It means something like 'do nothing and everything will be done'." I took some breaths and steeled myself for the cheese I was about to spew. "While it's a pretty good saying I've come to realize that you can't always do nothing because a lot of times everything won't be done. I had to take some action and so last night..." Here I paused to demurely lower my lashes. "...I did. I didn't know how the guys would react so I acted the fool but I really do like _like_ you Aya."

Har har take that _Yoj_ you stupid dipshit!

I decided to milk this goat for all that it was worth. Maybe I could gross Aya out so that he'd just leave me alone! And then later I could find him without the intrusions of Yohji and Omi and tell him what all these drama was about. 

"So you wanna go out for dinner tonight? Like you know, on a _date_?" 

Aya looked at me. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at his watch. He looked at the ladybug. He looked at me again. "I guess," he mumbled. "But I'm not bringing you any flowers."

I felt my eyes widen to the size of frisbees. "Say what now?"

"What do you want me to do, broadcast it?" Aya was surly. "I said I'll go on the stupid date alright! Stop trying to rub it in!"

I was flabbergasted. I mean my gas had never been so flabber in all my life. "I...I'm not," I managed to say. My head was reeling like that guy with the big head from 'The Real Korean Fishing Show'. "I'm just surprised. I never, ever imagined that you'd wanna go anywhere with me...like this."

"Oh." Aya smoothed out his apron and shifted uncomfortably. "Well don't be late then. I don't like that."

"I'm not gonna be."

"Uh that's good."

"Uh yeah."

Aya hastily stalked forward, clearly done with this conversation. I stepped aside so that he could pass. He put his hand on the door and stopped. He glanced at me. "I'll be by at six thirty."

I nodded, numb.

Aya hesitated before awkwardly patting my cheek. His hand was like ice. Then he practically spilled out of the closet, leaving me standing there like a gopher in a corn patch. A haunting possibility was slowly drifting into my mind.

What if Aya really _did_ want to go on a date with me? Then that would mean...

Yohji stuck his head in the door. All thirty-two of his teeth were displayed to full advantage. He gave me a thumbs up. "You'll be getting some stuffin' tonight!" 

I picked up the ladybug and threw it at his face.


	6. Chapter 5

~*~Chapter 5~*~  
  
Alright so lately, as in like the past two hours, I've been pondering and brooding and doing all that poetic Shakespearian shit. My little internal adventures have led me to put forth a series of philosophical enquiries about events relating directly to my life as pertains to the current passage of instances...  
  
How exactly might one go about defining a word such as, oh I don't know, 'date' for example? What exactly does said word entail and encompass? How should one fully articulate the meaning of such a minuscule grouping of letters? It was all so up in the air, reminiscent of many an in-flight foul fowl. Several hours of concentrated mulling really did escort me right into a variety of responses.  
  
One might be wont to describe 'date' as an increment of time to be set according to the earth's gravitational rotations. Another folk of the scholarly set could very well take the approach of 'date' being an oblong, sole-pitted tropical substance from the Familius Figgius. And perhaps one of a more jaded global view may go on to describe 'date' as pertaining to the accidentally arrangement of two mismatched masculine folk who, in the vain hopes of avoiding certain moronic buffoons of both the sexes, decided to undertake said arrangement with which to shun social etiquette and moral boundaries in a grand scheme of deceit, high fibbery and dejection of spirit.  
  
"Don't worry guys don't worry, I found the other boot." Yohji held up a lone, lime-green crocodile cowboy boot, complete with tin spur, stacked heel and pointed toe.  
  
It has been said, by who Nararihyon knows, that the third is the one with the hairy chest. Ever since about twelve minutes ago I've been checking for a smattering pectoral rug. Not so much luck yet but I'm not gonna be holding in any air...might be letting some out though.  
  
"I paid $350 US for these bitches and I'm gonna lend 'em to you for free."  
  
I ground my bicuspids together and scowled as viciously as I could. "I'm not wearing those scales!"  
  
"Hey are you okay Ken?" Omi huffed into my room, his twiggy arms loaded with rags. "Don't tell me you're getting jittery!"  
  
Yohji peered down his nose at me. "Yeah man, you look a little, you know, constipated."  
  
Say what now? What the hell kinda clam chowder is this?! Who looks constipated? I was pissed off, by Buddha's bronchiole, not having some goddamn shitter's cramp! "Holy petunia I'm fine! And I already told you that I don't need your stupid help and I have shoes for Ling Tao's sake!"  
  
Omi and Yohji gave each other eyeballs...as though to communicate cranially that I had pebbles in my potting soil.  
  
"Shoes you say?" Omi made a production of looking at my sneakers that sat in a heap by the door.  
  
Yohji's voice was snooty with the pride of his supposed 'discriminating sense of fashion' as he oft liked to call it. "What, those ratty things?"  
  
Ratty? I didn't see any rodents around here...unless you counted the human variety. Those kinds of rodents came in pairs.  
  
Omi looked at me in what I'm sure he perceived to be an academic manner. "Those ecological wastelands look like they're supporting several bacterial colonies."  
  
I rolled my eyes. The big biology man just had to spew around his stupid science talk. "I don't give five craps what they support as long as I'm included."  
  
"Would you just look at these for God's sake!" Yohji waved around his boots. "Real croc leather, true story! You wear these and I'm telling you, you'll be the dude of the dinner."  
  
"I'll be the suckass of supper," I snapped. "Animal rights activists will cudgel me in the head."  
  
"Well I think those boots will go spiffy with these." Omi displayed a pair of knee-length, tight jean shorts. "I bought these last Hot Pants Day but they were way too big. You can wear them now."  
  
My eyes felt like hula hoops poking out of my face. The kid wanted me to wear boots and shorts together in public? This bit of apparel advice coming from the guy who bought shorts for Hot Pants Day? What did he think I was, a hooker from the 80's?  
  
"Yeah man yeah!" Yohji scrounged around through the stack of frippery he'd brought before pulling out some shiny silver thing. And I'm not talking about his twenty-eight yen Raybanu sunglasses. "You can complete the look with this hot piece of clubbing studliness!" He held up the aforementioned 'hot piece' for my inspection.  
  
It was a crop-top vinyl vest with leopard print pockets and matching zipper.  
  
The image of me wearing their 'outfit' (and I use that term quite loosely) was so gruesome that I nearly developed a cerebral hemorrhage and cataracts. What I did next could only be described as an act of desperation. I was fearful for both my visual and cranial capacities, you must understand. I was weak, irrational, nearly blinded from the horrific imprints of sheer brutality that had victimized my innards.  
  
"Hey that cost me $490 US!!!"  
  
Omi peered out the window. "A dog's barking at it...no wait now a guy just drove over it on his bike! That's really rude."  
  
Yohji's cheap shades nearly blazed off his face. "Now you die Ken!"  
  
"Suck aorta dipshit!"  
  
"You are being mean Ken!" Omi was glowering at me. "We don't have to help you-"  
  
"Then don't!"  
  
"But we are out of the all goodness in our hearts and souls and kidneys and- "  
  
"You owe me a new vest," Yohji interrupted darkly. He scowled.  
  
I smirked, revelling in his misery. "Are you a little, you know, constipated?"  
  
"Now's not the time to be making jokes," Omi admonished, shaking his finger at me. "Sheesh! You only just threw his vest out the window!"  
  
"How many times do I hafta tell you?" I demanded, feeling sulky. No one ever told Yohji that now wasn't the time for jokes. "I don't need your help. I know how to wear some clothes on my own you know."  
  
"Well what're you planning to wear then?" Yohji challenged in a bossy voice.  
  
I grabbed some brown cargo pants and my Argentina soccer jersey from off the floor. "I'm wearing these with my black hoodie."  
  
"You wear that everyday!" Yohji exploded. He looked as ticked as the time he accidentally got his hair tangled in his wire.  
  
"I'm not wearing them now."  
  
"Come on Ken, Aya's probably taking you somewhere nice," Omi piped up. "You gotta get a little bit dressed up."  
  
"What the hell for? It's Aya! He's seen me covered in mud and leaves and blood and lima beans, what's he gonna care for? If I don't give seven craps about how I look in a pile of scraps then why the frig should he? It's none of his damn business."  
  
"You're going on a fucking date!" Yohji practically hollered. "You gotta look hot! What if he wants to bone you after?"  
  
Uh huh, yeah as if that had one fifteenth of a chance of ever happening. The guy was probably terrified I'd bite him again and if not, hell I'd be terrified that he'd bite me.  
  
"Don't you care about impressing Aya?" Omi questioned. "Don't you want to look good for him?"  
  
"Of course not. It's only Aya. Who gives a shit!"  
  
"I thought you liked him," Yohji said with great suspicion. "I thought you've been wanting to date him for a really long time."  
  
"Uh...oh yeah." I tugged at my collar. I forgot about all that tutti-frutti mush I'd hammed it up with. "What I mean is that, you know, I don't wanna start things off...erm you know, like false or something. He's gotta like me for me, not for some wanky image I put on. Besides he sees me all day. He's not gonna be impressed if I wear some new clothes."  
  
"That's a mature attitude," Omi commended, looking vaguely impressed.  
  
Yohji was a tougher, stupider macadamian to crack. "I still think these boots are the permit straight into Sex City, if you get-"  
  
"GET OUT YOU LOUSY CUM STAIN!"  
  
Sometimes you just had to toss subtlety into the Bay of Bengal.  
  
"Well sheesh!"  
  
I heaved handfuls of tacky hipsters and girlish shorts at their retreating figures before slamming the door shut as loud as I could.  
  
Outside I could hear Yohji complaining. "Try to give a guy some help... "  
  
"I think he's just super nervous about this date."  
  
And there was that stupid word again...'date'. I was really coming to loathe the word.along with the likes of Yohji and Omi. Honest to Zeus they were nosy and annoying. Didn't they have something better to do than offer me shitty fashion advice? If anything I should be the one giving them advice. Cowboy boots? Jean shorts? What the fakk was this, Crocodile Dundee in Tokyo?  
  
"Bunch of fruity McTudes," I snarled and flopped down on my bed.  
  
I grabbed the stack of 'An Antibiotical Avenger' comics that were under my pillow and tried to read. My mind kept stewing. What a heap of dense those guys were. That Yohji and Omi didn't make a single suck of sense to me. I had a good ten minutes before Aya was to swing by and 'pick me up' and they wanted me to get ready now? What tomfoolery. Aya lived like half a second away from me! If he sneezed I could hear him and say, "Eww gross me out you bacterial cesspool of microbe filth." It wasn't as if it was gonna take him a long time to come to my place. Who knows? Maybe he would even change his mind and then I wouldn't have to go through this utter retardation.  
  
Unless of course he actually wanted to go out with me...and one had to have noticed that he hadn't exactly put up the fuss of the epoch over this date.  
  
I glanced up from the battle between the Antibiotical Avenger and Count Protoplasm's Minions of Macrophagopia with some concern. But that couldn't be right, could it? Afterall I had bit the guy and put my mouth on his and then ran screaming all the way down past Hitotsumenudo's Two Yen-o-rama boutique. Surely a smart noodle like Aya wouldn't genuinely believe all that dog dung I'd fed him earlier about how I liked him so much...  
  
I looked back down at my comic in deep reflection.  
  
"I'll get revenge on you if it's the last thing I ever do!" Mistress Malaria was telling the Antibiotical Avenger.  
  
Revenge! Of course. What a diabolical scheme. Such cunning could only be hatched from the likes of Aya. This was exactly his style. He only agreed to date me in order to lull me into false complacency and then when I least expected it, he'd extract bitter revenge on me for biting and humiliating him. It was clever all right and so very devious. I knew I'd have to be on my brain for this baby.  
  
"Thank you Miss Malaria," I said and gloated. Aya wasn't gonna be able to pull a swift on over me no matter what!  
  
My clock turned to 6:29.  
  
I vaulted from the bed, shucked off my jeans and T-shirt and scrambled into my cargos, jersey and hoodie. I jammed my feet into my kicks and shoved some cash into my pocket. The doorbell rang as I took a passing look into the mirror. Not seven tenths bad at all.  
  
I opened the door.  
  
Aya stood there dressed all in black and looked like he was in mourning. He didn't stupefy me for half a nanosecond.  
  
"Hey buddy what's up?" I boomed in my most obnoxious voice. Two could play the pastime of trickery, that was for sure. No way no who no what was I gonna make this easy for him. "Boy I sure am glad you agreed to be my DATE for tonight!"  
  
Aya opened his mouth but nothing came out. He shuffled his feet and started digging around in his pockets. He pulled out what looked like a brown, scrunched up fern leaf. "Here," he grunted.  
  
I took the brittle bit of flora, feeling cheated. Apparently I'd overestimated Aya's crafty character but still I kept up my front. "Gee thanks man isn't that a beaut I sure will keep it FOREVER!"  
  
"It smells," Aya mumbled.  
  
"Well then I better leave it at home," I replied, chuckling loudly at my own joke. I took a big whiff at the piece of fernery. A pungent odour arose and clung to my nostrils. The hairs in my nose started to twitch. A massive sneeze erupted from my proboscis, complete with spray.  
  
The fern leaf broke into three pieces. 


	7. Chapter 6

Author's Note: 

Uh shit -_yeah-_ this story is overdone. That's the fucking point. The only reason I started writing this was so that I could play around with language and experiment with original phrases and sayings and curses. I wanted to write something really different and I wanted my Ken to be a weird-mouthed, sarcastic dumbass with Aya acting like a shy fraff. This is meant to be an Aya/Ken story that is original and different. If your brain can't handle it and you think it's too "confusing" and "overdone" or think I'm "murdering" the language then oh yeah _don't read it_. There's an idea! I'm not changing my approach so tough fucking luck. 

But to everyone else who's read and actually liked this drama, you guys are awesome...like the brainy sort who'd never wear shorts on Hot Pants Day. :)

~*~Chapter 6~*~

It really is a thorny business to try and expound upon the subtle differences between a silence that is content in nature, ie two comfortable companions indulging in a breather after garbling on conversationally and a silence that is just fugging awkward, ie me and Aya after the fern fiasco. I'm telling you, the look on Aya's face when I broke his crunchy leaf scrap suggested something akin to severe cranial lacerations. He didn't even look _that_ pissed when trying to chuck Takatori the ol' heave-ho into Lah Lah Land. 

Hence the long-suffering silence that was more rancid then last Beach Day's pork udon. 

It wasn't easy, trying to needlepoint when exactly things began to curdle between me and Aya, but if pressed I guess I'd hafta say something like...oh mayhap...three and a half nanoseconds after my schnozzle squirted. In any case, by the time we were sitting in the Aya's Porsche, things were well into the putrefaction process. 

I tried very hard not to grouse but hooplas above, if the seconds on my Antibiotical Avenger Illuminator wristwatch went any slower, they'd be going _backwards_.

But I ask you this, can I _truly_ be blamed? What is there left to say to the guy who attempts revenge upon my personage with a bit of poisoned fernery? For indeed, after much ricking and racking of the cerebral cortex, that certainly is the conclusion I've concluded upon. It all adds up, much in the manner of the Quadratic Equation only instead of giving me two roots, I got three leaf pieces. 

Heh heh little joke there.

It was _very_ apparent to see what was going on. I know it because I'm not of the 'easily fooled' variety. Make all the shit-cracks you want to but the bottom brush is this: Hidaka Ken _knows_. I may not be any He-Man when it comes to the dating scope of things but frankly I don't think being overcome with desire to stuff my head into the carburettor of a diesel truck constitutes as normal adolescent sentiments. If a guy's gonna gimme some scrunged up bit of fennery and call it Christmas in Hawaii...well needless to say you won't see me partaking in any of _that_ old shit. I've always been on the hearty side, call it good breeding it you will, and if a no-show piece of foliage scrap can bust a spray out my snout then for sudorific sakes, there just _had_ to be villainy afoot.

And let's face the aria shall we, it's not like Aya was just any kinda moron. The guy was as crafty as a bunny toilet paper holder made out of wooden dowels and pipe cleaner. He hadn't been recruited by Birman for nothing, that much was for sure. He had some brains and was obviously putting them to use to exact a cutting approach of revenge upon my hapless person. I should have been pouring over the runes of that drama the moment I caught the updrift. 

Aya had always seemed of the asexual brand to me...and then oh look ho-ho he's willing to ham it up on a _date_ with me? As in wining and dining and all that archaic crappy Yohji blathers on about? Yeah that's the golden trophy for sure. It was definitely fishy business. Clearly I had let the need to throw Omi and Yohji off my ass enshadow my innate powers of deductive development. Under normal circumstances I would have been onto Aya like Masafumi at the kidney black market but even I have off days and what with all the theatrics the Yoj and co. have put me through, well is it any bleeding wonder my senses have been a tad decrepit lately?

Beside me, Aya made some sort of grunt at me then, as though indicating I should turn my attentions to him.

I narrowed my eyes. Yes, he'd always been a most shifty sort. Well I was now in full knowledge of his nefarious stratagems and he would have to act swift if he wanted to pull the old 'one-two-four' ever _me_.

"Have any preference?"

"Say what now?" I boomed heartily. Above all, I couldn't let him know that I knew. I would have to act natural. Luckily I can play the part of the Renaissance Man quite well when the occasion warrants. "Whachootalkin'bout?"

"Of where to eat," he clarified in sulky tones. He gave me a glance that suggested I wasn't rowing with both oars in the public park pond.

"Of where to eat hah hah hah a fine question by any standards!" I sniggered luridly and slapped my thigh for added, obnoxious effect. Inside my mind the old cogs were really having a rotation. Where was an appropriate scene to scarf some sassafras down our gullets? A locale where Aya wouldn't risk trying to disgorge me or some other high drama? It was a quandary of a risk, asking me to choose the place of eatery but I wasn't about to blow it, if Aya was stupid enough to dud it up like that.

Aya stopped at a stoplight and glanced at me again.

Oh hell why didn't he just get a friggin' telescope? Then maybe he could watch my pores secrete! Keep looking at me all day would he...and this coming from the guy who didn't know the meaning of the word 'eye contact'. Sheesh. "What?" I demanded testily.

Aya huffed, his eyes taking on that familiar moody cast. "Where do you want to eat?" he enunciated slowly, as though speaking to some addled-brain duffer.

Oh yeah.

"Well anywhere's fine with me man!" I enthused. One half a second after proclaiming that rumpus, it occurred to me what I'd just said.

Apparently Aya wasn't the only who was stupid enough to dud it up like that.

Inwardly I fumed. Damn that Aya to the chambers of Beelzebub! So he thought he was sly like a monkey did he, making me forget what I was thinking? Well humphh I wasn't about to take this by being some recumbent dicktard. Let it not be known that Hidaka Ken lay aside like cast-off lawn furniture for the greater glory of Fujimiya Aya.

"Hey wait a minute, yeah I know a good place we should go to!"

"Where?"

Desperately, I jabbed my finger in some random direction. "Over there!"

Aya followed my finger. "You want to eat at that sidewalk vendor?"

Oh ugh, Tokyo sidewalk vendors. Even homeless people didn't eat at those disease-on-wheels. Hastily I glanced about for signs of any other nearby food emporium but there were none to be seen. There were only clothing shops. Rows and rows of scrappy clothing shops all displaying tiny pink T-shirts with Hello Kitty emblazed on the front. I jerked my gaze from those horrors and tried to look aflame. "Mmm mmm beat the street while we eat!"

Aya's face was sour. "That's unhygienic."

I looked out the window and scowled. Oh so now all of a sudden the guy was worried about my hygiene was he? What was he gonna do next, floss my bicuspids and then try to pull a Yohji around my trachea? Yeah nice try sorry we're closed keep the change _Fujimiya_.

I went on the aggressive. "Well where would _you_ rather eat at?"

Aya shrugged in a would-be casual way, too bad he was as stiff as Yohji's brain, and his ears turned red. I didn't think it was from the glow of his hair. Had to be his conscious catching up with him, the lousy lout-face. "I thought we could, if you wanted to, get some bento boxes from that Hibachi place down the street? It's your favourite place to eat, isn't it? That's what Omi told me."

My stomach gave a big lurch. I loved Hibachi; their bento boxes were to kill for. Then the rest of what Aya had said sank in. So. The guy was porking it up with Omi was he? Wanted to take me out to my favourite restaurant did he? Uh huh. Well. You weren't gonna see _me_ falling prey to such obvious bamboozlement. I knew what he wanted to do. His mouldy plan was to take me to a familiar setting and then, when I was maxed and relaxed, he'd toss onto me his skulky heap of vengeance.

How much more 'clear as mud' could the guy get? Talk about your basic foolio and a half.

I steeled my vertebrae. "I wanna eat over there," I trilled in peppy tones. 

"But it's _unhygienic_," Aya chuntered churlishly. "Those vendors sell disgusting rotten foods. Each year thousands of people get food poisoning from unsanitary vendors. In fact, just in Tokyo _alone_ there are approx-"

"Tell me more stats man," I grumped, getting annoyed. Hell I didn't need to be reminded of all the grisliness that came from eating at those ratfests. I hated street vendors, they sold brain tumours on shishkebob sticks. The memory of me getting food poisoning when I'd been five after eating bad chicken from a street stall was still as fresh as the food vendors _didn't_ sell. 

But sometimes, when you needed to fob off a hell-bent weirdo who was diabolical enough to come up with a contaminated brown bit of fennery, you just had to scarf down some filthy snacks. It just might be the only way, sad enough to say. I certainly didn't relish driving about hither and thither scouting for more food places while smothering in that long, stiff silence.  
  


"Ken-" 

"I know that place it's good." Oh how it hurt me to say those words but say them I had to. 

Aya gave me another look but thankfully didn't try to fact it up anymore. He carefully parked his Porsche, made a huge ceremony of checking all the windows and locking all the doors and then off we headed. I tried hard not to think of how I was most likely going to be poisoned for a second time that day...this time of my own accord. Oh how the fates were heckling at me.

And indeed they were...heckling at me that is. The food vendor looked like he'd ran for ten years through the Amazon, took a swim for five in the holy pollution of Ganges river and then dried off with a yak herd in Upper Mongolia. I couldn't tell if it was him omitting that cheesy odour of foot pungency or his food, most of which was a brown puce hybrid and festering in bright, amber-speckled puddles of oil. In any case, that many flies couldn't be wrong could they? The man grinned at us and I saw with no great surprise that his gums were of a spotted, black variety; his remaining teeth the colour of old butter.

In spite of my resolve, I was certain that the expression on my face mirrored Aya's. Ughfest '99 and all that bubo. I couldn't do it. Not even to frib off Aya and his mad plottings. "Uh wrong place," I muttered weakly, avoiding the seller's smarmy face. He kept grinning at me in a way that reminded me of that creepy Ronaldo McDonaldo character.

Aya was never really a guy for excess emotions but even I could see the relief drizzling onto his pale face.

"Deals deals deals," the man suddenly chanted, his voice as greasy as his wares. "Five for two, five for two!"

Five of those _piles_ for two hundred yen? One alone would be enough to send anyone hearty of hale straight into cardiac arrest!  

"More like none for nothing," I couldn't help but snort.         

The pre-packaged grin dropped right off that guy's face, probably similar in manner to anyone who's ever eaten his victual diarrhoea. "You gettin' _wordy_ with me champ?"

Lousy scuzzfest. His slimy attitude gave me a hankering a la violence for my claws. _Those_ ladies would rupture him a new shabu shabu, if I had anything to say about it...and I _always_ had a plethora of shit to spew.

"Who you calling champ?" I growled in a voice so ferocious a flock of nearby pigeons took flight. "I'll get as damn wordy as I want to, crotch rot!" I smirked with an abundance of satisfaction. I knew I was putting the fear of Buddha into buddy's cholesterol-caked carcass. I knew my brutal tones were enough to really get a fear on. I knew that when it came time- 

"Quit snivelling," Aya snarled at me. He narrowed his eyes at Shinjuku-ku Lard Face over there but the dud didn't seem to notice, being as he was too busy brandishing a pair of ill-sniffing, sauce-slathered tongs at my brain.

"You best not be gettin' arty-smarty with me asshole," the man sneered, still displaying the remainder of his dripping teeth to full advantage. "I'll get that Fat Fujisawa from down the docks to bust up your ass and then you're-"

"And I'll get the Board of Sanitation to bust up _your_ ass!" I shouted, enraged. "You're not allowed to re-sell trash, retardo!" Threaten me will he? Try to poison me with a leaf piece, will he? Try to get me a bimbo girlfriend will they? Suddenly there was a whole heap of pissed off pissiness straining to froth out my mouth and it was all aimed at vendor's cavernous proboscis. "I'll show you some real meat jerk, not those shrivelled dog legs you're passing off as mutton cubes!"

Vendor looked like a seizure was coming on. His hairy-choked limbs twitched while his beady eyes grew in diameter. Talk about epilepsy. Talk about d=2r. "Candy chunkass, my food is the freshest grub this side of the fucking forest! I'll murder your head and your father too for this dishonourable insult!"

My mouth was open to let out a stinging insult, something along the edge of his food being flakes of Psoriasis and his mother being a whore, but Aya decided to add a pinch of cilantro by participating.

His voice was like that icy blast, breath freshener gum that came in hard white squares. "You threaten my boyfriend again and I'll disembowel you!"

My chin dropped.

Aya was fuming as he yanked his fingers around my wrist and heaved me up the street. Over my shoulder I saw the vendor pick his ear with a grimy shishkebob stick. He glared at me with revulsion plastered all over his head.

"Boyfriend?" I managed to squeak out in a very high-pitched octave. I cleared my throat loudly. "Uh boyfriend?" I tried again in a much more manly inflexion.

Surprise number 2: Aya reddened so profusely that his entire head looked like a pomegranate with purple eyes poking out.

"I meant date," Aya muttered, quickly letting go of my wrist.

"Oh did you now?" Ah yes, it was all so very apparent. That Aya and his Machiavellian type ways. He was for sure trying to pull an ugly orange turtleneck over my face but damn it all if I couldn't see through the cheapo cross-weave stitchery. Aya didn't dent a dinar about foul-faced vendors and the like...he was just trying to catch me off guard with his simpering sweet-talk so that he could really give it to me. He was a brainy sort; he probably had resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't be getting me to Hibachi anytime soon. So now he was frantic and obviously had decided to hoof a short-cut to my heart via flowery language and verbose dialogue.

Well now, when two tangoed one had to lead.

I grabbed hold of Aya's arm and hugged it hard. I shoved my beaming face onto his shoulder so that my mug was _right_ there. Then I began to wax on enthusiastic. "Aya you know what you just did? You saved me from that lard guy! You're like the hero I never wanted!"

Aya's face remained rash-red. "You can't go about getting into scuffles with innocent people. That's the antithesis of what we do." 

"Innocent?" I sputtered. What was this hullabaloo he was talking? "Are you blind? Didn't you see that guy's 'molester's moustache'?"

"He wasn't a dark beast of tomorrow that we have to stalk." 

"Of course he wasn't a beast, any beasts around here he killed off and fried in that rotten meat sauce." I let go of Aya's arm and instead held his hand. It was a chancy gamble. I mean, _me_ walk down the street holding _Aya's_ hand? It was a scandal. What if I saw someone I knew? I guess it was a good thing I didn't know anyone then. 

"Well you wanted to eat there," Aya reproached moodily. He didn't even try to extract his skin from mine...yeah _real_ accommodating while he's chewing me out. "What did you expect from a place like that?"

"Oh so now we're playing the blame game are we?" I snapped, tightening my fingers around his in annoyance. Like I'd have wanted to eat at that dung bunion if Aya hadn't been planning to gank me at fucking Hibachi. "Well maybe I wouldn't have wanted to go there if you hadn't wanted to go to Hibachi to get bentos!"

"That's your favourite place to eat!" Aya argued hotly, stomping on the sidewalk. "Since you wanted to date me, I'd have assumed that you'd want to eat at your favourite place!"

"Well don't assume because it makes an _ASS_ out of _U_ and me!"

"You don't need to assume since you're already an ass."

I wrenched my hand from his. "If you're going to call me names then I don't want to hold your hand anymore!"

"You're making me mad," Aya warned in pissy accents. 

"Aya mad, oh sheesh well imagine my friggin' surprise!" What audacity the guy had! Like he wasn't always stamping about, huffing at this and that. "What're you gonna do, gimme another poisoned leaf crumb?"

"Poisoned?"

Uh oops.

Aya's face now matched his eye colour...only more puce in hue. "That wasn't poisoned. How could it be? It was a damn _fern_ leaf!"

I was outraged. "It made me sneeze!"

"What are you, stuck in the Middle Ages? Sneezes nowadays don't mean death stupid!"

It occurred to me then that I'd never heard Aya speak so volubly about something other then missions and plant advice to customers. He must have been some desperate, to try and fool me...once again. I could easily see what he was doing. It was no grunting effort, that was for sure. His every move was as see-through as Yohji bumbling around on the PC for "mission stuff". Aya was trying to get me into a right fume so I'd ditch him so that he could then rethink his shambling strategies. I'll bet he never expected me to lay bare his stupid plots and then counter his every move. He must have been some damn flummoxed that I'd guessed his toxic foliage scheme. Crafty bastardo. Well I wasn't going to let him win, no way, not a chance come high tide or holy schism. Letting him know that I knew about the noxious leaf had been a mistake, true that, but I could make up for it. Not problem at all, not in this day and age of penicillin and epidurals. 

"Oh let's stop all this pointless tiffing," I proclaimed floridly. I beamed his head. "This kinda stuff is supposed to happen _after_ all the magic is gone from our relationship."

Aya blushed.

I rolled my eyes. Seriously, what was this guy, a girl? What was he gonna do next, start stammering and poking his cheek? Talk about padding the part. Like I was fooled. He must have been taking some serious tips from those fruffy bints who came around the shop each day...hamming it up with feminine wiles and whatnot like that.

Aya stopped. He'd planned this move so that he was standing picturesquely beneath a flowering, hearty specimen of tree. His uneasy, vaguely hopeful expression was of a fine thespian assortment. He may have been one of few words but his talents were many. Funny how he'd managed to scrounge around some emotion for this little rouse.

"Are you saying...I mean you actually... " He blinked hard a few times. "You want a...a _relationship_? With _me_?"

"Yeah man yeah sure why not?"

The leaves rustled over Aya's head while he looked at me with blank eyes. He seemed stumped at my readily eager, over-the-top-obnoxious agreement. "Today's only our _first_ date though," Aya said slowly.

Hah hah sucker, the guy had no clue where to lay his shabby cards now! "Oh well I've _liked_ you've for _ages_ now," I lied breezily. "I've been _PLOTTING_ ," Here I gave him a deep and meaningful look so as to display that I was indeed onto his diabolic fashions, "to be with you for a LONG time. That's just how the love shack crumbles, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"Uh yeah. Right then." He scrubbed at his cheek. "So...what do you want to do now?"

Hook line and motherfucking _sinker_! I gloated heavily. This joker wasn't going to get away from me to scheme it up again. If I'd ruined his plans then it was going to be all improv from wence to hence baby. I wasn't about to let Aya make an ass out of me just because Yohji and Omi were too retardo to get that I didn't want no damn girlfriend. 

"I thought we were gonna find a place to eat," I said loudly, still gloating.

Aya gave me a suspicious look. "I better pick the place this time."

Oh shut up you smug dickwad. Like my senses hadn't also been affected by those brown, oily lumps in pottage.

"Ken."

"Yeah what's up what're you sayin'?"

"You just stepped on that ladybug."


	8. Chapter 7

Author's Note: 

Exactly one year ago I was watching some dumbo 'Winnie the Pooh' Christmas Special and I was inspired to write this drama. So, because this is the most fun I've ever had writing a fic, I figured an update was due to celebrate the good times. One year and only seven chapters...I must be writing a la 'the process of erosion'. 

Well I hope you guys enjoy this chapter...I don't like it quite as much as some of the previous chapters but there are still a few amusing moments floating around and Ken has yet again fucked himself over. Oh Ken when will you learn? There's just no hope for the boy.

Happy reading and happy holidays folks!

~*~Chapter 7~*~

Well slather me sideways on a sacrilegious Saturday, if the hullabaloo of _this_ locale wasn't the very limit...as in 'pushing the limit'.

I could almost _feel_ my grunky kicks, scruffy cargos and wrinkled hoodie dissipate in the heavy _ambiance_ of this lofty dive. If Aya hadn't had pupils that could roast a ram raw then I most definitely would have been hefted ass-to-asphalt right out the crystal-cut, be-canopied doorway.

Compelling, I know...like Aya was good for some kinda shemozzle.

But here's the thing you gotta know...the very _limit_ of these posh premises...beyond the velvet _squabs_ my ass was filthing up or the spread of silverware and china that was worth more then my claws to Kritiker or the fucking _fountain_ that stood upon a dais of black-veined Italian marble...the limits that were _beyond_ this pinnacle of panache were the menus.

The _menus_, by Takashi's toenail. 

The twelve paged, vanilla-scented, butter-hued vellum was engraved in loopy, gold script (because when words looked that fancy they weren't _writing_ anymore but rather _script_) and bound with tendrils of maroon-coloured satin ribbon. Staples were much too 'of the merchant class', obviously.

Hells below, this _volume_ wasn't _even_ a menu but rather a _confection_ of frippery and finery. It was a _tome_ to be perused by the philosophical in nature, the scholarly in spirit and those in possession of a sturdy monocle.

My fingers, all rough and ruddy and peasant-ish, looked like brown sausages against the crisp press of the bound _digest_. If I would've put the friggin' fraffery down then I would've left _oil-drools_ a la fresh serving-STD Tokyo vendors, I'm sure of it. Next thing I'd've known, those hippy granola-fuckers would've been sponging my ass, bellowing about oil spill disasters.

Seriously, I'm not making any kerfuffles here, it's the truth of the times. As far as I knew, and indeed I _have_ read over three books this year, menus here were the puggiest things around town..._especially_ if you toss in all this froufrou French fruffery. This supercilious who-ha didn't slick well with me at all. While I wasn't much of a food vendor skewered-grub kinda guy, neither was I an es-car-goto kinda guy. Sure, I'd just followed Aya into the first restaurant that had derailed our meanderings...I'd been still silently fuming over his gormish ways but taking a good goose at the drama of this place...well I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't more of a stupid scheme on Aya's behalf. Like trying to embarrass me inside the Frenchies in a classic 'platypus outta Auzzie-land' type of ruse.

Trying to play mental tiddly-winks with the guy was a nomadic experience, I'll grant him that. I'd been mincing around in corners of my mind that hadn't seen visitors since the Polynomial exams of elementary. I may not have been that ten-year old kid studying Nuclear Physics at Tokyo University but nor was I any Tot. I had only misled Aya into thinking I wanting to be his 'special friend' to ditch the empty chicks those tools Yohji and Omi had been tossing off on me. Was a guy's sense of self preservation enough to merit well thought-out plans of revenge and hatred? Yeah I'd kissed Aya but I for sure as falafel didn't like it anymore then he did. Even less in fact; _I'd _been the one who'd been _pinned_ under his bulk and I'd been the one with his _skin_ under my _teeth_...like that prissy bonehead better not've given me no gingivitis...and _I'd_ been the one who'd had to initiate that meeting of man mouths, which wasn't even to jiggle the Jello on all the abuse Yohji and Omi had preluded the entire debacle with. If anything I was the victim here and I deserved respect! I didn't deserve Aya's sneaky notions of revenge and I didn't deserve trying to out-wit him at every corner-pocket.

And I _certainly_ didn't deserve to force myself into eat snails and sheep and aardvark in some eatery that looked like its patrons farted lilac perfume and shit rose petals...all in the hopes of placating the moody guacamoleguts sitting across from me.

"Can I get you gentlemen anything to drink?" came the hushed, pretentious voice of our hoity-toity waitress. "Something from the bar perhaps?"

Aya looked at me and a flush the color of a candy cane, though obviously not striped, spread over his cheeks.

Oh by Yamawarashi's bulging belly, what was that arsejam plotting _now_? That fruity sunset there wasn't going to make a lug out of me, yeah that's right. No puddings to melt here, carry on then. _Ahem_ motherfuckers. I met Aya's gaze with a keen spirit about me.

"Well we could have wine if you want to," Aya mumbled, quickly glancing away.

I stared down at my eight silver forks, five silver spoons and three silver knives blackly. Well. Well now. Was subtly a lost art? Where was the creative sport I'd come to expect? This was shoddy my friend, I thought, _this was shoddy_. How much more obvious could Aya get, dragging me into this phoofy Frenchie dive and then wanting to suck back some mashed grape guts? What next, the old yawn-n-stretch arm throw at the local drive-in movie matinee? 

Maybe then I _should_ have some wine, to go with all the theatrical Havarti around here.

The waitress cleared her throat delicately and sniffed down her snub nose at me.

Well if I hadda play the game then I'd go for the gold, obviously. I wasn't about to let Aya do whatever he was gonna do. And speaking of…what exactly _was_ he gonna do? Seduce his way into my aorta and then reject me? Take pictures of my junk and compare it to twig? Spread rumours of how crap in bed I was to Omi and Yohji? Leave me with Schwartz for a night?

"Uh Ken?"

Oh _when_ was this damn constant badgering ever going to head for a finale? Already the guy was acting like my frooging wife, bossing me around and nagging my ass a la Persia to Manx.

"Wine, the nectar of the Gods," I boomed heartily. "Yes, wine would be the exact kicker for a special evening such as this!" I caught Aya's eyeball, grinned widely, tipped him a wink and topped off this bit of roguery with a display of the 'call me' hand position. 

The sunset deepened, heading straight for haemorrhage junction. "We'll take a bottle of Beaujolais white," Aya mumbled.

The waitress was goggling at me, looking revolted by my boisterous, bourgeois attitude. "Have you cataracts?" she demanded of my wink, sniffing down her ski slope of a nose.

"Have you a congestion in your sinuses?" I returned waspishly.

She huffed, scrounged away the wine list from Aya and stalked off. 

"Stupid tartlet," I snarled, vexed. "She's filled with some kind of pointless Crème Brulee froth, she is."

Aya cleared his throat and looked down at his menu. "You don't have cataracts," he muttered, his ears as scarlet as his eartails. 

Oh when _would_ the compliments ever end? I could scarcely bear it. Byron, the guy was NOT.

For lack of something better to do, I peered down at my menu...and had to suppress the urge to feign Turret's Syndrome to get an Italian loafer kick-off from this pistil of a place. What I'd like to know is when did these grub guides morph from set lists of ingredients and preparation to full-flavoured self-help paths to enlightenment? Since when did an upscale, upmarket, up-the-arse restaurant like this pissant become synonymous with 'Shambala Buddhist Meditation Centre'?

Mans, I just wanted some _nosh_.

Okay, so just get a stack of _this_ hullabaloo.

'_Like a slice of the late September twilight, these brandy-soaked Austrian truffles, lightly sautéed in a scrumptious dandelion-peppercorn vinaigrette, are tantamount to a sensation of fragrant autumnal harmony. Served solely to enhance two fillets of a raspberry-hued Atlantic sturgeon so delicate its lush flavours are sure to induce a glimmering abyss of decadent pleasure within the heart of any pursuer. Completed on a bed of crisp endive, lemongrass and gooseberries, this is an entrée worthy to be savoured by both the connoisseur of gourmet repast as well an adventurer of oceanic spirit._'

It was a vinaigreet-smeared dungfest enough to make _anyone's_ brain fart. What a nautical nightmare. If all those 'adventurers of oceanic spirit' actually ate all this sort of snotty smezzle then why in the name of the Caspian Sea did they get scurvy every twenty-three leagues? How was chowing down on some fish and berries gonna get me a hook up with this 'glimmering abyss in my heart' shit? What did that even _mean_...other that I wasn't of an oceanic spirit?

And above all that jazzmosis...by Lady Kesho-in's cross garters how _could_ one sauté truffles? It smoggled the mind, I thought. Like wouldn't they melt, the truffles? Who even ever heard of mixing up dandelions and peppercorns with _chocolates_? That was disgusting!

The waitress minced back with the wine. She poured a tiny slice of white into the hull of Aya's glass for him to test. He took a sip and pronounced it worthy, though I was of the opinion that he didn't know arse over teakettle about what good gushed grapes tasted like.

Snootsville refilled Aya's glass and then mine, still sniffing and not condescending to gander down at my plebeian-like facial bonery. "Have you finished ordering yet?"

"A few more minutes please," Aya requested genially and she smiled at him before sashaying off.

"So what should we drink to?" I asked, a plastic smile glazing over my features. It too must have been 'tantamount to a sensation of fragrant autumnal harmony '...blank smile + my face.

Aya tugged at his collar and looked uncomfortable. "Um...friendship?"

Getting demure were we?

"Or to successful relationships?" I countered boldly. 

Aya blinked at me and suddenly, quite unexpected really, smiled. A _real_ smile; that it to say none of that ruthless, butcher-of-men business he favoured on occasion to make the galoots _thoroughly_ sweat it up.

A warmth, similar to chugging brandy or at least 'brandy-soaked Austrian truffles' I'm sure, swamped in the area of my small intestines. The cardboard grin on my face faltered before falling off like a cheap toupee. Ah hell no. Motherfucker no. By the Tale of Genji no way. I was _not_ going to get all pansy-assed over Aya making a parabola with that pale, wormy, frowning though oddly pouty... 

I wondered which fork you used if you wanted to slop out a cornea.  

Aya raised his glass slightly. "To successful relationships then."

What choice did I have? I'd been the one to put my gullet into the throat-thumper and that was what they called 'fucked five ways to Friday'. "Yeah man, if you say so."

Sad part was, he never did said so, it was all me and my lardo fatlip. 

We knocked our glasses together.

Aya took a hesitant, almost fussy sip of his wine.

I drained my glass. "You want some leaves and grass or what?"

Aya dabbed at his mouth with the corner of his gossamer-blue linen napkin. "What?"

I was transfixed. What was the guy doing, scrubbing at his mug like that? He hadn't eaten _anything_; we hadn't even ordered any food yet and here he was, scouring away. Did he ever fit into this place, like _how_.

"Sturgeon my good man, _sturgeon_. Or aren't you a 'connoisseur of gourmet repast'?"

Aya blinked at me. I could tell he didn't have no clues to what I was harping on about. "To eat you mean? I was thinking about this chicken." He gestured vaguely at his menu. "I've always been partial to cilantro. Has a rather subtle flavour, wouldn't you agree?"

Huh? I shut my mouth and checked for drool. I didn't know nothing about no cilantro. I'd never even _heard_ of that...whatever it was. Sounded like a snobby French word for that brown meat sauce British people put on smashed potatoes. Lords_damn_ that Aya for trying to show me up! He knew I knew exactly squatter's settlement about fancy foreign foods beyond pizza and still he was trying to make me look the fool. Was that why he'd carted me into this praline-nosed reef? I was outta my element here and he knew it.

Well then. If that was how the beans were gonna ferment then so be it. 

"Oh I _much_ prefer a dandelion-peppercorn vinaigreet," I trilled breezily. "Now there's a real taste you can sink your chompers into!"

"You mean _vinaigrette_," Aya corrected, his lips quirking. "I've never tasted such a vinaigrette before."

Well neither had I but you didn't see me whining about it. Jezebels below, could the guy _be_ more condescending? Vinaigreet, viniagreta whatever, I wasn't French. I didn't even know what this viniagreet business _was_ and frankly it sounded revolting. Who put dandelions in with their eats anyway? Dandelions were _weeds_ and they tasted _bitter_. I know, having eaten a handful on a drunken dare once.

Petunia's goddamn _pansies_ was my upchuck ever jaundice-yellow that night.

"That's what I meant," I replied through gritted teeth. "Vinaigr...uh you know. That good stuff."

Aya smiled at me. _Again_.

Yeah I'll bet he was dancing in Lah Lah city, all jubilant over my obvious screw-ups. Well excusefucking_me_ for not having had the privilege of working in a restaurant prior to offing evil folk. I could hardly stand to stare at his smug expression. Stupid bimbo.

I glanced back down at the menu for consolation and saw the theatrics that had won Frosty over.

'_A startlingly bold myriad of seasonal fresh, rhubarb-cilantro glazed garden vegetables served along side Rose Whiskey basted chicken breasts plumped to maximum opulence make Rose Poulet avec Legumes a veritable fest for the senses as well as for the soul._'

So now my soul was gonna have a time with some veggie bird was it? 

I had to wonder what made the chicken and vegetables such 'astartlingly bold myriad'. Ever since the union of hunters and gatherers, man and woman have been cramming meats and leaves down their faces. This wasn't anything new, least of all not _startling bold_, now matter how much you froofed it up.

Figures Aya'd order something that stupid.

I poured myself another glass of wine and took a vigorous chug. When in France and all that kaka.

"So uh..." Aya fiddled with his napkin a bit. I was instantly on my guard. He was up to something alright; I could see right through his coy facades. "When you...um when you said you...er you know...likedmeforalongtime..." He looked up from his lap and blinked coquettishly at me...yeah like that drama worked when you were a _dude_. "Did you...well did you mean it?"

Ugh to the power of _nineteen_. Here came the reaffirmation process. Like I hadn't already played the Bozo around here. It was enough to make a guy wanna maul his face up with his own claws...or at least the faces of his scheming, sneaking, conniving boulderbrains of three pair team-mates.

"Yeah man what would I lie for?" I guzzled some more wine and gave him an 'earnest' look. Yohji may have been a third-class schmuck but he was always rhapsodizing about making eye contact with the ladies to look like you meant all the crap you were spewing. 

And here's to hoping my proboscis would stay the same length in the wake of all this new melodrama I was about to sprout up. I leaned forward. "I do like you _a lot_ Aya. You're a state-of-the-art kinda guy, know what I mean green bean?"

Aya blushed...like AGAIN. For such a prissy, cold-arsed prick, he really did have this facial-flooding business down to an art...a state-of-the-art cheap shenanigan, you might say. "A-ah. Well then. Um...why? Why me, exactly?"

I goggled at the guy. Don't tell me this. He didn't _genuinely_ expect me to sit around and extol his virtues, did he? What, did I look like that Sakura trend-whore jogging in her underpanties? This was _nadir_...so very nadir...even for a Schuldich like Aya. What was he trying to ascertain, other then a lesson in Ken Humiliation 1102?

Like it wasn't _rancid_ enough, that I had to _kiss_ him and then date him and hold his hand and pretend to be in LOVE with him...all in the hopes of avoiding that tack-fest Yohji and his twice as losery sick-kick and their combined match-mixing muddles. Where _was_ the _humanity_ in this putrefying beef-brew? 

This called for a snoggle of the old liquefied jolly. I drank with all the festive cheer of a fellow just dumped by his waif. "Because Yohji and Omi are lousy hosers!" And wasn't that the karma-kissing truth...hell yes toast to that. "Of all the people I know in this whole entire world you're the most, how d'you say, _quiet_. And broody and moody...hey that was rhyming!" Cheers mate and a world of glugs. "You're all-" Mean and nasty and vindictive, giving me a contaminated swab of cruched-up fennery like that. "-nice looking when you get pissed at chicks who buy shit-all at the store or at Takatori or drivers who cut you off. An' I like the way you only gotta _scowl_ at Yohji and he backs off your food. That stupid screwdriver's always grabbin' and pokin' at my foods." Was that enough mush talk or what? Like I was NOT gonna be comparing Aya's eyeballs to frosted plums or counting the ways I loved him or any other tutti-frutti, nancy-boy dung natter. 

Aya adopted a shifty-shy sort of expression. "You think I look...nice when I'm angry?"

Talk about choking the cluck outta that chicken. Some folks were just never satisfied with a few love words...like this guy wanted a whole damn dictionary. "Yeah whatever bud sure, why not?" 

"Oh." Aya wiped at his cheek a bit, face brimming with pseudo-embarrassment. 

The waitress decided to prance back to our table then. She curved her lips at Aya. "Ready to order gentlemen?"

I planted my glass onto the table with a loud _thunk_. "Bring us another bottle, my good wench!"

The smile dropped off of pretension's phizog like dumb off Tot. "_Excuse me_?!" She seemed irate. "I am NOT a wench you cheap drunk!"

"Drunk?" What in the molten core was this putz saying? "Off almost two glasses of this winery? Lady, I'm no lush!"

"Ken?" Aya gestured to the bottle of Beaujolais. "Only about one quarter of the bottle is gone. Maybe we should wait for another?"

Here came round fucking TWO of naggings-ville. Who was Aya to make the rules at this frou-frou table...Persia? 

"And we're ready to order," he continued without waiting for me to reply. He smiled up at that bitchy hussy, a huss if I ever saw one and she softened like a bowl of lemon crème glacee in front of an anorexic. "I'd like a small garlic lobster bisque and the Rose Poulet, please."

So Aya was gonna go garlic, was he? Scarf down some protection eh? As if I WAS going to mouth him again, yeah right, keep hoping there Frenchie.

"And for _you_?"

But I didn't really hear her a foul and appalling thought had suddenly occurred to me. Aya was a diabolical character, to be sure and I'd almost missed this one but just...what if? What if indeed. It could be possible, I didn't dare below-estimate boulder face. 

Say Aya had foistered me into this den of boujee to give me some kinda _clue_? Like to quiz me on how step-to-the-moment I was? What if he was gonna try to top _my_ kiss with a kiss of his own and make that kiss _French_ a la this bistro? He probably didn't want to lock lips with me anymore then I did him...and now he was trying to gimme warning signs. He was THAT desperate, the dumbbar. He thought he could ladle the ladoos but chaps on Piccadilly was his daal bits ever getting smushed! This French eatery, his bossy mannerisms, the endless _'that's_ _not how you pronounce_ _vinaigreet'_ spiels, the crafty ordering of garlic...all the signs were brighter then Farfarello in the Congo. 

Aya was trying to repel me!

"_Well_? You can still _talk_ can't you?"

Such a damn catty witch.

"Yes I can still talk," I snapped, adding 'you shabby floozy' under my breath. "I'll have this truffle-sturgeon-endive hoopla..." I didn't even know what endive _was_, to think the truth. And who ever heard of, like eating fish and chocolate together? It sounded like a mess and six sevenths but if that wasn't gonna give me halitosis of the year then I was gonna keep chowing down. I hastily scanned the food-fare tome, as it were. I would out-stink Aya if I hadda use my friggin' _life savings_ in this stuck-up kettle of pretension. "And some of this onion pork soufflé along with the brie-stuffed eggplant."

HAH! See if you can scope _this_, eartails!

"Oh and a dish of this clam and parsley consommé." Just for added reinforcements, you understand.

Snobby-skirts scribbled quickly, looking like she'd been made to clean the toilet with her tongue. "Is _that_ all?" she demanded, sneering prissily at me.

"For the moment, merchant," I replied haughtily and waved her away in the manner of master dismissing serf.

She scowled, appearing quite in fact like a long-lost sister of Aya's, before stamping off.

"You must be hungry," Aya commented, watching me above the rim of his wine glass.

"Starving," I proclaimed and polished off my second glass of wine. I scrutinized Aya...a teammate yet an enemy. How paradoxical. How peculiar. He was looking sorta funny though, like he was far-off or something. What was he thinking right now? What was he up to? What was his next scheme?

"I didn't know you cared for soufflé," Aya continued, dabbing daintily at his mouth. 

Yet another diaphanously-gauzed insult. "Yeah well I didn't know that you cared for lobster brisk."

"Bisque," he amended. "And I do make it every other Sunday."

_That's_ what that stank lobster upchuck Aya made every Sunday was? Revolting! I had to suppress the old gag-a-thon reflex with much élan of fortitude. Aya was turning into a _pure_ sleaze, what with his truculent '_You don't really know jack shit about_ _me'_ attitude. He was trying to call my bluff, the wily balloonbrain. Some sneaky _he_ was. You didn't live together and then kill together with a guy and not know a few of the more base details about said guy.

"Just like you rotate your mimosas two and a quarter inches towards the sunlight every week."

How's that for a _factus obscurus_, asshat?

"Uh yeah, that's true."

He _undeniably_ sounded good and put-off!

I chortled as I helped myself to some more wine. Whatever else this poshella place might be...they sure knew how to serve up some _satisfactory_ spirits.

"Uh Ken?" Aya leaned forward a bit and gestured to my face with his white hand. "Your face..."

OmigodsinCandyLands _Aya was gonna try and kiss me_!

I panicked. I couldn't understand what he was gelling on about...I could see his thin, vine-like lips move but his wordy spectacle didn't compute inside my cerebrum. He'd taken me off guard and now I was left pissing like a ham hock.

I grabbed his wavering fingers and pulled him further towards me. The yammering stopped. His pansy-boy eyes grew enlarged with shock. Stupid barbell, I _always_ won…'cept when I didn't. "I'll kiss you first pal!"

And I did...a great hullabaloo of a smacker right on the lips. And I slipped him a bit of the tongue, just 'cause. He wasn't gonna be able to crown _that_ King 'Beacon of Manhood'...short of boning me and even he wouldn't go _that_ far to revenge me up.

Would he?

Aya's face resembled nothing more then a fried-up aubergine. "You had an eyelash on your cheek," he whispered and then _he_ drained _his_ wine glass in one helluva of knock back.

"You taste sweet," he whispered, gazing at me like Yohji would crotch-less panties.

He didn't even wipe his mouth with his napkin either.

Shitter's cramp was I ever in some deep diarrhea. 


End file.
